


Escape to Africa: Kerry Weaver's Chronicles of Kenton

by Kam14



Series: Love & Loss [14]
Category: ER (TV 1994)
Genre: Africa, Chicago (City), Coming Out, County General, Gen, Memories, Nature, Nostalgia, Sexuality, South Africa, game reserve, same-sex relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28518495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kam14/pseuds/Kam14
Summary: Post-breakup with Kim Legaspi, Kerry visits her close friend, Mlungisi in Kenton-on-Sea, South Africa. She uses her time there to get back to her roots, experience some of her happiest memories, and discuss some home truths related to her sexuality with one of the people who has known her--and understood her--longer than anybody else.
Relationships: Kim Legaspi/Kerry Weaver
Series: Love & Loss [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033827
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Escape to Africa: Kerry Weaver's Chronicles of Kenton

Romano? Of all people, it had to have been Romano who was the first person I came out to publicly. But it had been for Kim’s sake, or so I told myself. Great job, Kerry. You finally stood up for what you believe in, for someone you love, for who you are, and for what is right. But it was too late in the game and, because of that very fact, Kim didn’t care. Not anymore. But I hadn’t been ready beforehand. I hadn’t been ready to accept for _myself—_ let alone to try and explain to anyone else—that I am a lesbian. I’m getting there. I am. But the one thing I didn’t want to happen is for all of my employees to learn about my personal life…about my sexuality through the grapevine, lest of all through the homophobic little bullet-head that is Robert Romano himself. God knows what he’s going to blurt out in front of the whole ER. I mean, it’s not like they’re going to have the same amount of respect for me after they start finding out about my personal life. Maybe some would. But others…no. I need time to let all of this sink in…my coming out, breaking things off with Kim, gearing myself up for whatever the fallout of both of those things happens to be at work.

That’s why I told Anspaugh that I would be taking a leave from work for three weeks. I would be “visiting friends in South Africa, where I grew up”. Little did Anspaugh know that, at the time I had told him I would be travelling to South Africa, I hadn’t put a single plan in place in order to facilitate that story. That was all it was; an elaborate story which would enable me to sit in my house in Chicago for twenty-one days and wallow in self-despair. Well, here we are on day three of that plan and I’ve already completed all of the household renovations I had planned and have already caught up on the stack of charts that I had neglected to review during my last few days at work. I had watched one hour of some terrible daytime reality television show about “real” housewives…of…Beverly Hills…Atlanta…I hadn’t really been paying attention, they could have been from any wealthy neighbourhood in the USA at this point. The point was that I was bored out of my skull and couldn’t face another two-and-a-half weeks of not facing the very thing that I had taken time off in the hopes of coming to terms with. The truth was that I was apprehensive to do it alone. I didn’t have a single person that I could talk to about the recent events that had unfolded in my life. Not in Chicago, at least.

That’s when the thought that I should actually fly to South Africa and visit Mlungisi. Mlungisi and I could go a number of years without seeing one another and then, when we did finally visit one another, it always felt like we’d never been apart. We’d had a fling when we were teenagers but, surprisingly, it never made things awkward after it ended. We remained as good friends as we had since day one. After booking a flight from Chicago O’Hare to Port Elizabeth Airport in Kenton, where Mlungisi and I had grown up (and where Mlungisi and his family still live today), I made a phone call to Mlungisi to let him know I would be flying in the next again day. I told him I would be booking into a nearby hotel, but South African hospitality meant that he insisted I stay with him. Of course, I obliged.

The next again day came around and, thankfully, I had had the foresight to book a flight in the late afternoon as opposed to the morning, as I knew I would be awake packing most of the night. That also, thankfully, meant that I slept for most of the uneventful first of two flights and that I wasn’t alone with my thoughts for any prolonged period of time with no distraction. I had a three-hour layover in London after disembarking the first plane and I spent the majority of it wandering around the duty-free shopping area in search of summer clothes that I didn’t currently have in my suitcase—I live in the Windy City, after all—but knew that I would be thankful for under the heat of the August sun once I arrived in Kenton. After successfully managing to track down and purchase a sunhat, sunglasses, and a pair of sandals (and to successfully use up that time with a welcome distraction to all of the worries I was trying to escape from), it was time to board the final flight. I didn’t sleep on this one; instead, I casually flicked through a book of commonly used Zulu phrases. I had never been completely fluent, and I knew that Mlungisi’s family all spoke English, so it wasn’t an integral activity. Nonetheless, I still wanted to brush up on some of the (many) features of the language that I had forgotten over the years.

The warm South African air fanned gently against my face when I stepped off of the plane at Port Elizabeth. Once I had collected my suitcase from the baggage area and had moved through customs, I exited the airport to an array of taxi drivers holding up signs for their designated pickups. Despite all of the commotion, I spotted Mlungsi’s tall frame waiting towards the back of the crowd, his eyes scanning from one side of the airport entrance to the next until they finally caught mine.

“Hello stranger”, he smiled warmly as I made my way over to where he was stood.

“Long time no see”, I replied, embracing him and kissing his cheek before he led me to where he had parked his car.

The journey back to Mlungisi’s house, which was located near Sibuya Game Reserve—not far from where I had lived as a child—took around half an hour. Once we arrived and I had become acquainted with his lovely wife, Ayanda and his two energetic sons, Kagiso (who was five) and and Kgabu (who was nine) over a huge dinner that Ayanda had prepared, I retired for the night. I was awoken by the sound of—no, not birds as I would have been in Chicago—what sounded like a herd of elephants trumpeting in the distance. Gosh, how amazing it was to be back here. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to take a safari trip and, seeing as Mlungisi worked as a ranger on the reserve, I persuaded him to take me along to work with him for the day.

We headed out in his jeep shortly after finishing breakfast. Mlungisi acted as if he was my own personal tour guide by pointing out all of the exotic species of birds that inhabited the treetops, the herd of buffalo grazing on a plain of land, the rhinoceros drinking from the watering hole. As we drove further into the reserve, we even saw a pack of lions lazing under the shade of a tree, away from the bright late morning sun. I almost couldn’t believe how much I took waking up to this every day for granted as a child and wondered why I hadn’t visited South Africa more often than I had since moving to the US. I was content with the nature, with my present company; coming here after all—as opposed to just _pretending_ to come here—had been a good decision. Since I was so in awe of my surroundings, I let Mlungisi do most of the talking up until he found a suitable place to park the jeep so that we could grab some lunch.

“So?”, Mlungisi asked after finishing a bite of his sandwich. He was wearing a cheeky smirk like the one he often wore upon his face when we were children.

“So what?”, I asked, unsure what my company found so amusing.

“So”, he elaborated, “what _really_ brings you back to Kenton?”

“I came to see you”, I replied, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

“Ach”, Mlungisi scoffed. “I know you, Kerry Weaver. You would never take three weeks off from your work and fly all the way to South Africa on a whim if you didn’t have a more specific motive than that, something you need to do whilst you’re here”.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. He knew me too well, even after all of these years. “Not so much something I need to do so much as something I need to get off my chest. I don’t have any friends at work who I’m close enough to that I can comfortably tell. So, I decided to come here and to…”

“…to tell me”, he finished my sentence, raising his eyebrows, not in surprise but in genuine interest.

“Yes”, I confirmed, inhaling deeply.

“Ah”, he exclaimed, realising that his speculations were correct. Mlungisi had the gift of reading me like an open book where many others who met me didn’t. I don’t think I have changed very much personality-wise since I was a teenager and, therefore, he was still able to see straight through the self-assured façade that I often employ.

“You know you can tell me anything”, he reassured me, sensing my nerves. “Go ahead”.

“Recently, I became…involved with somebody. It took me a little too long to figure out what I wanted from this relationship because things between us happened rather unexpectedly and I didn’t know how to navigate the emotions I was feeling because…this relationship was with another woman”, I told him as I bit my lip and looked down into my lap.

“And what were you feeling?”, Mlungisi asked softly.

“I was feeling…I was feeling like I’d discovered what it was like not to be alone in my soul”, I admitted, now making direct eye contact with him, my voice breaking a little. He smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a few short-lived relationships where I felt happiness because I was having fun and you know…enjoying someone else’s company. But those relationships never felt like anything deeper than good friendship. Then I had a disastrous marriage to Daniel. I was head-over-heels in love with him at first but as time went on, he started to make me feel like a piece of human garbage more often than not. I guess I’ve always just wanted to feel like I’d found the person who gave me the opportunity to love and to be loved, despite all of the boundaries we are having to break to facilitate that. And I felt that with Kim. But I wasn’t ready to explore or accept my sexuality. I’m getting there, though.

I came out to my boss when he threatened to fire Kim—she was a psychiatrist at County—after she told a suicidal patient who was also struggling to come to terms with her sexuality that she was gay. The patient accused her of sexual harassment, and I told my boss that, if her fired Kim over any row initiated by her sexuality, he would have to fire me too because I was also a lesbian. I was too late though. I had already made it clear to Kim that I wasn’t ready to adopt a ‘lifestyle’, that I wasn’t ready to come out as gay to all of my co-workers. I was—and still am—too scared of the judgement. She was fired from a job in which she worked so damn hard in because of other people’s prejudice. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me too. I didn’t want to face that kind of loss and she took that to mean that I was ashamed of…us. So, she broke things off between us. But then I realised that, in staying silent, I would be losing something much more important than my work; I would be losing that feeling of finally feeling like I wasn’t alone in my soul. That’s why I spoke up…but it was done in vain, as Kim had already decided to resign before any legal investigations against her could be taken. She found her permanent escape with a new girlfriend in San Francisco and I found my temporary escape right here in Kenton…with you”. 

I paused to collect myself before looking up into Mlungisi’s kind, dark eyes, smiled and wiped a rolling tear from my cheek. “If I’ve learned anything from this whole experience, it’s that I can’t possibly carry on with my life hiding who I am, repressing the feelings I have for who I love because of other people’s prejudices. But I have to do it at my own pace. I can’t face being pushed out of the closet; I need to accept my sexuality—first, privately and then, publicly—at my own pace. I’m sorry, I’m rambling now. I just couldn’t bear to sit in my house for three weeks trying to work through all of these thoughts alone”, I admitted.

Mlungisi simply took my hand in his own and gave it a small squeeze before adding, “You don’t have to”.

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed writing this chapter and exploring Kerry's backstory in South Africa and her friendship with Mlungisi further, as this is something I feel was glossed over a little in the show. I hope you also enjoyed reading my interpretation of their friendship through the lens of Kerry's exploration and acceptance of her sexuality.


End file.
